Maybe my GP is right. I might be worrying too much. I shouldn’t follow the news so closely.
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Judge by yourself.
US-Choinah relations are bad, the Yanks are fighting a proxy war in the Ukraine against Pew-teen and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi decided she wanted to visit Taiwan.
And get this: the third person in the line of succession of the POTUS, apparently did not bother to ask the President, let alone his lackeys in charge of defence, national security and foreign affairs.
Everybody was concerned, from Biden down: the media made that abundantly clear.
Why? Because the Chinese regard Taiwan as their own territory, not as an independent country (much like the Ukrainians regard the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as their own territory). For the Chinese, the Taiwanese government is illegitimate (much like the Ukrainians regard the governments of those regions). A visit by a serving high-ranking officer of the American Government confers the Taiwanese separatists legitimacy. That is a provocation.
Can you imagine Zelensky’s tantrum if an important foreign dignitary decided to pay Lugansk a friendly visit?
The difference is that beggars can’t be choosers and Zelensky knows it. Beyond his usual and tiresome theatrics there’s little else he can do. The Chinese are not so constrained and even not very bright members of the Biden Administration understand that
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And yet, Secretary of State Antony Blinken (who said the American Kabul debacle had no similarity whatsoever with their Saigon debacle) says this:
Is he really that stupid or is he just forced to spin what cannot possibly be spun?
(In fact, that line is so bad that I imagine only Australian commentators could fall for it.)
If the Speaker does decide to visit and China tries to create some kind of crisis or otherwise escalate tensions, that would be entirely on Beijing.
Is he really that stupid or is he just forced to spin what cannot possibly be spun?
(In fact, that line is so bad that I imagine only Australian commentators could fall for it.)
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I hope Choinah ends up choosing moderation.
Their moderation, however, could cost them dearly. American and Western observers will almost certainly interpret Chinese moderation as an admission of weakness: Xi Jinping folded, it was all just a bluff. (Bill Birtles says that Xi – supposedly the all-powerful autocrat – needs to save face before the Chinese. Seriously, Bill? If I were god-like Xi – as Bill says he is – I would worry little about things at home. It’s Westerners who can threaten me).
To Western audiences, Chinese moderation sounds a lot like an open invitation to more and more provocations. Ask the Russkies.
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Biden is intent on emulating his former boss Barack Obama: the CIA killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda boss, who was hiding in Afghanistan.
Biden’s grasping at straws, ahead of the looming mid-term elections.
But I don’t have a dog in that hunt, as Yanks say.
I am more interested on how Biden justified that killing. For him, like for Obama, eleven years, three months and four days earlier, in part it was a matter of national security, in part of justice.
That after eleven years, three months and four days a POTUS still needs to order the killing of an al-Qaeda boss makes me question how much will Zawahiri’s death make America safe. He’s dead? Someone else will replace him. That’s Biden’s logic: kill one today to have another one to kill tomorrow.
But it’s the “justice” bit that I really, really can’t swallow. “[J]ustice has been delivered” Biden said. The echoes of Obama’s self-righteous “[j]ustice has been done” are evident.
Justice would have been delivered, idiotic, senile psychopath, if Zawahiri had been brought to a fair, open trial, with a defence attorney, granting him all the rights a human being, even a criminal, has. The Nazis were granted all that, no? If Zawahiri was as guilty as we’ve been told, even the most incompetent American prosecutor would have secured a conviction. If that means death, so be it.
Let’s drop the euphemisms. What you and your boss did is something else: you wanted the guy murdered and you ordered a hit. The hit was successful.
And you violated Afghan sovereignity – and likely Pakistan’s – to boot.
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commissioned a review of our domestic military capabilities.
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To me, that sounds bad enough: “review of military capabilities” is Aussie for “increased military spending”.
But the icing on the cake is that the unhinged Opposition is up in arms.
But not because military spending is bound to go further up. No. They are frothing at the mouth because they fear that spending may not increase as much as they want. Believe it or not.
Yesterday Greg Jennett interviewed Andrew Hastie, Shadow Minister for Defence.
With the stunning lack of self-awareness of his own ignorance and intellectual limitations, Hastie spewed the usual illiterate drivel one expects from members of his party. A few selected soundbites:
- “China is undergoing the biggest military build-up in peacetime since the Second World War” (see below).
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Nancy Pelos is“Authoritarian powers are on the move”. - “President Xi has entered into a no-limits partnership with President Putin” (he literally said Pew-teen, for Christ’s sake).
- “In the end, as we develop our strategy and the capabilities we need to protect our country, you can't put a price on that. You've got to spend to deliver. And that may be 2.5% [of GDP].”
For each dollar Choinah spent in weapons in 2020, the Yanks spent $3. Add to that the spending of America’s three major vassals (UK, Krautland and France) and Choinah was outspent almost four to one. And I’m leaving India (one of the Quad members) out of the picture.
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But it’s a quick look at military expenditure as a share of GDP that reveals Hastie’s vacuousness in all its splendour:
The Chinese are not even running, bunch of cretins. Probe them and they may try harder.
My blood pressure must have gone through the roof as I heard Hastie braying. But if any of that registered in Jennett’s mind, his face did not betray it: imperturbability personified?
But even unflappability has a limit. This exchange may well show that:
So, that’s how traditionally those “military capabilities reviews” are made: some old geezers – who should be playing bridge, or bingo, or lawn bowls in a home for old folks – have the heebie-jeebies and the Government pays for it.
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The Chinese are not even running, bunch of cretins. Probe them and they may try harder.
My blood pressure must have gone through the roof as I heard Hastie braying. But if any of that registered in Jennett’s mind, his face did not betray it: imperturbability personified?
But even unflappability has a limit. This exchange may well show that:
GJ: When you say “on our own”, this presupposes that, with the best will in the world, our ally - the US - may not be able to - what? Come to our aid? Be present in this country? This is a fairly dire scenario that you’re picturing here.
AH: That’s right. Well, Jim’s book [Senator Jim Nolan, Major General retired] – Danger On Our Doorstep – the opening chapter is about a pre-emptive strike by China against the United States around the Taiwan Strait and what it means for Australia. And I can tell you, it’s a fairly scary scenario. Jim’s done our country a service by putting it out there. I think it’s a great way to engage some of these questions that this Defence review is going to consider.
GJ: Is that traditionally how they would go about these reviews – starting with scenarios that are, yeah, grave to say the least, under the Jim Molan scenario, and then plan back from there?
AH: That’s right. It’s the job of Defence to consider all scenarios. The most dangerous course of action. Because if you don’t plan for the worst, then when it actually does happen – and history shows us that it does happen – you find yourself ill-prepared and vulnerable.
So, that’s how traditionally those “military capabilities reviews” are made: some old geezers – who should be playing bridge, or bingo, or lawn bowls in a home for old folks – have the heebie-jeebies and the Government pays for it.
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Adding insult to injury: when scientists – with decades of experience, basing themselves on hard data, and intelligent work – warn the world of real, tangible, visible to any and all, catastrophes approaching the same bunch of deranged idiots who wet their beds as voices in their heads tell them of an imminent Alien-Chinese invasion are the first to claim the mantle of rational scepticism and calmness.
Give me a fucking brake.
UPDATE:
05/08/2022. The Climate Change Bill passed in the Lower House.
Peter Dutton, federal Opposition Leader, says his party will not change course on climate change, but I think even Dutton understands that by itself his anti-climate change jihad is no longer a viable platform to oppose the Labor Government: even a Liberal MP crossed the floor to support the Climate Change Bill.
He will need to find other fronts to fight his war on the Government.
Cue to Andrew Hastie and his arms race.
Brace yourselves, boys and girls. Something tells me the next few years fearmongering will be a constant on opinion and journalistic talk shows:
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If that apparently incoming campaign gets traction - as it may well get - soon enough the Albanese Government will be forced to cut spending on what is important to spend in the military: the calls for “budget repair” will not cease (ask David).
UPDATE 2:
It didn’t take long. Here we go:
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There will be many sparrows this summer. Expect an endless avalanche of fearmongering to justify military spending.
Two things piss me off above all. The first one is those prophecies have a self-fulfilling character: whatever the other guys does, you think is threatening to you; whatever you do the other guy finds threatening to them. It is difficult to escape that dynamic.
The other thing is how artificial crises inevitably overshadow genuine crises. Non-scientists’ opinions masquerading as expertise are credible to one and all, the real scientific expertise is ignored.
We are fucked. Our species deserves extinction.